IBIP: How students are positively impacting the other countries

Many students here at Central are reaching the age where a job is needed. Some work at Target, Weis, maybe even T.J Maxx. Students in IBIP however, work with microsoft and communicate with people across the world.

“It’s called IBIP, International Business Internship Program,” said junior Jacob Stewart. “We’re working with a team of people to benefit a Nigerian business owner and we’re doing so in a couple of different ways, some of which indirectly impact them, and a few which are directly impacting them. We communicate with them via Skype, and we do so about once a month to check up on their daily lives. We’ve become friends with them. ”

Stewart has been in the program for about two years now, and is accompanied in the program by three other juniors: Kurt Hammen, Grant Sommer and Myles Naylor.

“Each one of us in our group has our own job, and we do it separately or as a team depending on what we need. We get together once or twice a week, and we make sure we have all our stuff together,” says Stewart.

Stewart is the group leader, making sure everyone is doing what they are supposed to, and participating where he is needed. He is also the college assistants chair, so he helps the other members think about where they want to go to college.

Sommer runs the media side of things, reaching out to different news agencies that are around to try and get the word out to let them know what is going on. Naylor is the communications chair; he specifically makes sure the group is in contact with their business partner and translator so they can maintain a good relationship with them and keep it ongoing. Hammen is the special projects chair, he comes up with solutions for the business and he is also the fundraising chair.

“He makes sure he’s coming up with events so we can get the funds we need,” says Sommer.

The group has been hard at work at fundraising this year.

“We’re doing fundraising so that a poultry farm can get the proper funding it needs to train its employees to get off the ground, so it doesn’t really have a direct impact on him, but more so Nigeria,” says Sommer. “We’re trying to give them employees that know what they’re doing. Since they can’t go to their job during the day because they’re going through training, that’s where our fundraiser comes in and we help support them and make sure that they’re not broke while they make themselves a better life.”

“The one we did most recently was pretzel sandwich sales, so we all got together and made sandwiches then distributed them to people who bought them,” says Stewart. “We also did a trail run. We volunteered our time for that and in addition, because we did that, the head of the organization gave some money to the program. It was a great opportunity.”

“This is all run through Marshal Bailey, the director of the program. While our fundraising helps them, IBIP also is responsible for everything that they need,” says Stewart.

Currently, they are also working with a Nigerian tile business.

“There’s a couple of problems with their business, or things we could improve and help them with and we’re given specific problems to take care of. Right now we’re working on advertising,” says Stewart.

“We’re creating a pamphlet that we can send to the Nigeria team so they can print it out and distribute it so our business owner can get more business into his store. Through the program, we have access to a lot of different professionals, so if we need help with marketing or advertising, we can ask them for an actual professional in the business and the can give us some pointers,” says Sommer.

“Our goals are to improve our business owner’s life, as well as help make aspects of his business better or more effective. We hope that we will impact his life just as much as his story impacted us, and we will do anything and everything to make him successful,” says Stewart.

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